1890-1899

Janet E. Finley Collection of Quilt History Photographs

Los Angeles, California, United States

Cabinet Card 1888-1892
Photographer: Lamson Studio, Los Angeles, California
Size: 4.25" x 6.5"

Mrs. Berghofer (the name written in pencil on ther verso of the Cabinet Card) is having her studio portrait taken with her Crazy quilt on which one date, 1887, is embroidered along the outside center medallion. Notice the two beautiful fan motifs, one located in the quilt's bottom corner, and the second fan located above the center medallion. Penny McMorris states in her definitve book, Crazy Quilts, that the craze for Japanese items in the United States by the last quarter of the century made the Oriental fan a decorative necessity. Joseph H. Lamson (1840-1901) photographed the poets Longfellow and Whittier. Lamson Studios for many years operated out of Portland, Maine, focusing in landscape scenes, seascapes, and a series of large schooners sailing off the Maine and northern New England coastline.

-- With permission of the publisher, excerpted from Janet E. Finley, Quilts in EveryDay Life 1855-1955 (Schiffer Publishing, 2012).